Mr. Brian Hogan:

I note that this case was raised at the previous meeting in July. We are discussing non-EEA workers in the Irish fishing fleet with atypical worker permissions. The vessel was a UK-flagged ship, so it could not have been part of the Irish atypical scheme. It was outside the scheme to begin with. While the case that was presented was very concerning in some ways, it is not relevant to the discussion we are having about the atypical worker scheme. It certainly merits discussion and concern, but it is not encompassed by the atypical scheme, so I will move on to the next issue about that case. I had not intended to raise it because of certain issues. As the case has been raised, I would like to read from an email I received from the ITF. It was addressed to a Garda superintendent and me, and was also copied to many other people. It reads:

I attach a statement from Mr. ------ which gives details of his unearthly experience on board the fishing vessel [I will leave the name out]. As I understand it from the blanket of silence from both the Irish MSO department and the Garda, no charges have yet been put to anyone connected with this horrible act. Equally disturbing is the fact that the area of the vessel where ------ fell and consequently injured himself has not been the subject of a marine survey by either the UK or Irish authorities to determine if the vessel's working environment was fit for purpose. Further to this neglect of responsibilities on both flag states, and despite the fact that Mr. ------ made a formal complaint to the Garda in Anglesea Street on the matter on the 12th of May 2017, five days ago, the matter is not receiving the attention such a serious charge clearly deserves.

It goes on. I will not read the whole thing out. I received that on 17 May last. I wrote back to everybody as follows:

Dear all,

I refer to the e-mail below and wish to advise that the MSO did carry out a port state control inspection and a flag state inspection of the vessels on the 13th of May. [We had already acted, even though we received an e-mail saying we had not.] I wish to advise that the name of the vessel for the United Kingdom vessel is incorrect and [I gave the correct name].

Then I got an email from the ITF, as follows:

Hi Brian,

That is an excellent bit of information [in relation to us carrying out the inspections] and many thanks for the useful correction also [in relation to the name of the vessel].

The MSO has been very active regarding that vessel, bearing in mind that we work under international protocols and we respect the international conventions under which we operate. The vessel is registered in the United Kingdom. As I understand it, the incident happened 140 miles off our coast. We cannot be responsible for everything that happens outside our 12-mile jurisdiction. The protocol we follow is that we refer any such query relating to foreign-flag ships to the owner and to the flag state. That is the correct protocol. If somebody wants to get information on a vessel in a case like that, he or she needs to contact the relevant flag state. We cannot give it. I remind the committee that this is confidential information. There is an owner involved here. Regardless of the merits of the case, we are bound to comply with the normal procedures and ways of working. As a maritime administration, we have to do that and comply with international conventions and ways of working.

The Senator's third question relates to logbooks. I would like to speak about the requirements. The word "logbook" is an all-encompassing one. There is no such thing as an actual logbook, even though the term "logbook" might be used. It means many things. Fisheries vessels also carry fisheries logbooks. We need to be careful to know what logbook we are talking about.

The requirement to carry a logbook on a fishing vessel dates back to the 1894 Merchant Shipping Act, a very long time ago. The fishing industry has of course gone through many iterations throughout its history. The Merchant Shipping Act was part of previous UK legislation. Parts of it are still in place in this country while other parts are not. It is a very complicated Act. To return to the issue of logbooks, the logbook itself fell into abeyance for many years. It was a very unwieldy document. In Victorian times it was the equivalent of A2 or A3 in size, although they did not have A3 back then. The language used is also very Victorian and out of date. This language is set, however, in the 1894 Merchant Shipping Act and we have to be very careful before we change any of it.

What, then, did the Marine Survey Office do? I have explained how, together with the industry, we have brought together a new framework for the fishing industry in Ireland. This goes back a long time and has taken many years to develop. As part of the introduction of this framework, and after the last set of fishing vessels, the 15 ft to 24 m vessels, came in in 2011, both ourselves and the fishing industry came to see it as necessary that we would help them manage safety on board their ships. It was decided then that it would be a good idea to try to revive the logbook. This was for safety purposes only. We worked with the industry and gave it many assurances that if we developed a new logbook it would be for safety only and we would not use it for other purposes. We essentially incorporated four things into this new version of the logbook. The first of these is the crew agreement. I do not wish to go on for too long about this but it is very complicated. I am delighted that the committee asked us in today because we would like to explain to the members the complexity of the fishing industry. I would like say something about the complexity of ships, in particular. Everybody always asks why we cannot just have one agency looking after the marine. We cannot, just as we cannot have one agency looking after the land. Everything that happens on land also happens on a ship. Every Government Department which acts on the land also acts on a ship. Ships are not simple things, they are in fact very complicated, and fishing vessels are a form of ship.

I say that because it is very important that the atypical working scheme is signed by the fishing vessel licenceholder. That is not the same thing as the vessel. Mr. Conway from the IFPO made this very point earlier, that there is a shore-based component to this. This includes the employment records and, indeed, all the other records. Fishing is actually a shore-based activity that just happens to use fishing vessels to catch fish. The business, however, is a shore-based business, a food business. This is relevant because there are essentially two contracts of employment here. One has to be lodged with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and concerns the atypical scheme. The MSO has no involvement with that contract whatsoever. Also on board each vessel, however, is a document called a crew agreement. The crew agreement is included in the logbook and is an agreement between a seafarer and the master with regard to the conduct on board the ship. The crew agreement is not the employment contract, however, and is very different. We incorporated this into the logbook, although formally it is a separate document.

We also incorporated the list of crew. This is not a logbook requirement and is a separate matter, but we put it into the logbook to make life easier both for the fisherman and for ourselves. The third thing we included in the logbook was the actual logbook itself. Essentially, the logbook is statement stating: "We left, we went out to sea, we came back". It is a log. The fourth element we included was the safety management aspects of the fishing vessel, namely, the number of officers; the drills; the musters; and the safety issues. This, I think, was a good innovation. In total, then, there are four things in the logbook. It was introduced to help the industry from a safety perspective and we gave it an assurance to that effect. I am now concerned that assurances we gave for helping safety may now be used for other purposes.

To go back to the return issue, which is an interesting one. The question, however, needs to be asked very carefully. What exactly is the question? Looking at the fishing sector from an MSO perspective, we divide the fishing fleet into three: over 24 m; 15 m to 24 m; and less than 15 m. The regulator for the fishing industry is not the MSO but rather the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. We have no involvement in the fishing industry, we only care about the ship itself. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine regulates the fishing industry and it is completely different from us. It breaks the industry up into segments called aquaculture; beamer; pelagic; polyvale and general; and specific. These segments mean nothing to us. This is very important in order to understand how the logbook works. The logbooks themselves are required to be returned by the vessel to the MSO every six months. This applies to active fishing vessels only. The atypical agreement applies to fishing vessels over 15 m in the beamer, polyvale and general, and specific categories. If I were to go to look at a fishing vessel, I would not know which sector it was operating in. This is not relevant to our work.

To go back to the question about the logbook then, one needs to be more specific about which sector is involved. We cannot provide that information. Furthermore, the MSO never knows whether a fishing vessel is actually operating or not. We certify the vessels, but a fisherman could choose to tie his vessel up and not operate it. We have no involvement in this.